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[DanTfisherman]

In Contact and Conflict written by Robin Fisher in 1977, he concludes simple analogies that Indigenous peoples were taken advantage of and were not valid players in the shaping of this province, and Canada, are not true or accurate.  Fisher looked at various concepts around the "Noble Savage" and looked to take a balanced approach to the historical, as well as anthropological account of contact and what had taken place among Aboriginal peoples in Canada.

https://books.google.ca/books/about/Contact_and_Conflict.html?id=Is5199EdB0cC&printsec=frontcover&source=kp_read_button&redir_esc=y#v=onepage&q&f=false

Mr. Fisher looks analytically at First Nation culture prior to contact and realized there were extensive trade networks prior to the earliest relations between the First Nations and other non-indigenous peoples, and there were discrepencies in wealth and power between tribes prior to contact.  Various goods were held in value and prestige prior to contact, and extensive trading networks, warring networks, slavery networks, marriage networks, clans, etc existed in order to acquire various goods and prestige.
With contact, these various networks continued, evolved, expanded, and First Nations people often played a role in influencing these networks and how the evolution took place.  Therefore "greed" as you have stated would not have been an introduced, or a one way street concept.

While Fisher and his concepts were somewhat revolutionary and challenged when they were presented first in 1977, the prefix to the second edition (which can be read in the link I provided) states that his ideas have stood the test of time, have been refined, and relations between Europeans and aboriginal peoples are not so simple and one sided.  They were complex, evolving, developing, and to have First Nations people portrayed as hopeless individuals who were taken advantage of does not do justice to the true nature of the relationship, and the roles indigenous people played in the history of our province.

Dano

[Hike_and_fish]

The fishery is taking place in the heart of the band's traditional territory. Suck it up, buttercup, and direct your vitriol at the true culprit: consumerism and the ever growing greed for material possessions and profit - concepts that did not exist among the FN before white man brought it to them.

Oh yeah...... white men are to blame for this mess. I forgot how this works. The FN bands in this country get a free pass because white men took it all away. So, when things lile fish stocks suffer and a very rich FN band wants to take some of the last salmon EVER to sell for roe, I should just be ok with that and "Suck it up" because it's not the fault of the native but the fault of white people......... sure thing pal.

[RalphH]

https://www.ubcpress.ca/contact-and-conflict:

Fisher contends that the fur trade had originally brought minimal cultural change to the Indians. In 1858 it essentially came to an end, and with the beginning of white settlement, there was a fundamental change in the relationship between Indians and Europeans. What had been a reciprocal system between the two civilizations became a pattern of white dominance. He shows that while the Indians had been able to adjust gradually to the changes introduced by the traders in the contact period, they lost control of their culture under the impact of colonization.

Initial contacts between Europeans and FNs took place over a period of more than 100 years before the process that displaced FNs from their lands and resource access. That later period followed the many epidemic of smallpox and other diseases that reduced the populations to 20% or less of contact levels. The pre-contact social & cultural systems Fisher referred to had all but ceased the exist.

Dano the summary you provided also doesn't consider the modern legal and constitutional context that has determined many of the land and resource rights were not extinguished the Indian Act or the reservation system but were validated by the Crown prior and after confederation before the act and the reservation system.

[DanTfisherman]

My contention, and Fisher's, is not that contact was completely positive, although there are places where he suggests there were positives, as initially, Indigenous peoples were the drivers and choose what aspects of European culture they felt were positive, and often choose aspects that improved and enhanced their lives.

In choosing Fisher, who wrote in 1977, I am ensuring we do not continue to patronize Indigenous peoples, realize that there were a number of changes to their lives, many of them being negative, but others being positive, and look to suggest that Euro-Canadian culture is not to be defined as the element that introduced greed and is responsible for the current situation with the salmon.

I will contend a hypothesis that suggests that even if this was the case, we cannot use this historical context and a concept of "introduced greed" to endorse a right to participate in a fishery that could eventually play a contributing factor to the extinction of a species.  A traditional right cannot be championed and maintained as a justification for fisheries that continues to lead to depleting stocks, or impedes the ability for stocks to re-build.

Please do not mis-read my post and think I am stating Indigenous peoples are responsible for the current plight.  They are not and that is not what I am saying.  This is a cumulative, multi-faceted issue that many aspects of the environment and humanity as a whole have led to.

Sometimes, I almost feel like we should maybe look to use a term such as "genocide" to address what is happening to salmonoids and other animal species in the world.  I realize genocide is a term used to apply to the systematic extermination of humans, but I think we have become accustomed to talking about the "extinction" of animals, and we blame a number of various factors, of which we play a role of some sort, but we downplay what is happening and how we are contributing to what is happening.

Dano

[standalone]

I hope you are not referring to FN. If you are, you seriously need to do some reading. Start with this Wikipedia article:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coast_Salish_people_and_salmon

Not really.
After the white man's endless greed polluted their environment and along with climate change depleted salmon stocks, it's only fitting that FNs catch the last ocean-grown salmon. Minister Wilkinson is counting on it, so we can proceed to dam the Fraser and create more salmon farms.

"Recreational" salmon fishing of the future will take place in gigantic "pay to play" pens, not unlike today's pay to play trout ponds. Except we will be baiting the hooks with pellets, not roe.
To be honest, It won't look much different from the Vedder canal a week or so ago. 😯

only word people say in the public related to color and sex and not racist/sexism. 

[RalphH]

In choosing Fisher, who wrote in 1977, I am ensuring we do not continue to patronize Indigenous peoples, realize that there were a number of changes to their lives, many of them being negative, but others being positive, and look to suggest that Euro-Canadian culture is not to be defined as the element that introduced greed and is responsible for the current situation with the salmon.

I will contend a hypothesis that suggests that even if this was the case, we cannot use this historical context and a concept of "introduced greed" to endorse a right to participate in a fishery that could eventually play a contributing factor to the extinction of a species.  A traditional right cannot be championed and maintained as a justification for fisheries that continues to lead to depleting stocks, or impedes the ability for stocks to re-build.

How are we patronizing Indigenous people? Changes to their lives are mostly part of the changes to our lives that followed colonization and the total destruction of their way of life and culture as it had been known for many generations. Many of the positive changes to their lives followed the changes to the lives of the larger portion of Canadian society  by a generation or two. Fisher's 1977 observations that prior to contact and realized there were extensive trade networks prior to the earliest relations between the First Nations and other non-indigenous peoples, and there were discrepancies in wealth and power between tribes prior to contact were nothing new then. What's moere Fisher's observations have nothing to with contemporary FN or fisheries issues. They are in fact observations that were decades old in 1977. It also had nothing to do with you!

Suggesting  (in your words) we not "use this historical context and a concept of introduced greed to endorse a right to participate in a fishery that could eventually play a contributing factor to the extinction of a species" or that "a traditional right cannot be championed and maintained as a justification for fisheries that continues to lead to depleting stocks, or impedes the ability for stocks to re-build" is a strawman argument.

No one here has or I say, would and you have done absolutely nothing to demonstrate such a thing is happening or has happened.

[milo]

What a great intellectual exchange, Dano and Ralph. Much can be learned from two such fine debaters. I'm very much looking forward to reading more from both of you on the subject, since your knowledge of it far exceeds mine.
I have never learned to leave emotion aside when discussing issues, but I don't regret it one bit.
I'd like to add at this point that I have yet to learn of an aboriginal population anywhere in the world, let alone Canada, that can claim that interaction with the colonizers truly enhanced their traditional way of life. Please illuminate me if I'm sitting in the dark on this one.

All I do know is salmon and many other species are paying a very high price for our greed, greed that has grown exponentially in the last 30 years or so. And pointing fingers doesn't help one bit.

[Roderick]

LOL The FN are so anti immigration they must be Trump supporters.

[psd1179]

LOL The FN are so anti immigration they must be Trump supporters.

They don't want Trump as well. They only want to back before Columbus found America

[wildmanyeah]

5 Things First Nations want to see improved in Canada:

1-The right to self-determination.

Stop saying that this country was built on two nations, English and French. They were here first and want an equal voice of governance. Colonization of First Nations continues to be practiced in Canada and they are thrilled that Prime Minister Justin Trudeau is sensitive to the previous policies of First Nations extinction and are cautiously optimistic.

2-Education for their children.

According to First Nations Chief Perry Bellegarde, (the nicest guy you'll ever meet BTW) in Quebec, the government will spend $6,500 per year per child in an aboriginal school. The English school systems will receive $12,000 per child. The French school system will receive $20,000. They spoke with great hope at the ending of these discriminations in the near future.

3- Safe drinking water

According to this CBC report,400 out of 618 reserves have struggled with unsafe drinking water in a 10 year span. We should fix that.

4- Federal Law review

The last 10 years have been spent in the expensive court systems to fight omnibus bills that ignored land rights and treaties. First Nations believe in using natural resources responsibly for sustainable mutual collective benefit. They have a personal stake in seeing our economy grow instead of dealing with litigation. The new government has committed to reviewing all the laws that have been passed in bad faith and are sitting down to dialogue about appropriate revenue sharing and benefits sharing.

5-Close the Gap

NATO said that Canada listed 6th in standard of living in the world. Our aboriginal communities ranked 63rd on that same list. We have depleted their resources. When they objected to treaties being tossed aside, we have systematically cut their funding. The majority now live in 3rd world country standards. They are asking, ever so nicely, to please stop doing that and make it right.

[wildmanyeah]

Reconciliation...Sparrow

[Hike_and_fish]

Could someone that is a little bit more intelligent than help me understand something.

When my city needs to upgrade something..... let's just say its drinking water related. My property taxes goes towards paying for such a project. When a FN reserve needs a drinking water project, it's up to the federal government to pay for ? So, tax paying citizens from cost to coast are on the hook for a water project on a FN reserve in Northern Ontario where they pay no property taxes and barely anyone has a job to help fund a federal system of tax payer dollars. I am supposed to be ok with this because the Catholic Church and the Queen of England killed natives, took their land and caused misery for generations of FN people.

I was unaware that FN reserves fell under federal jurisdiction. Is this true ? I thought they want to be recognized as sepperate nations within a nation with their own laws and so on.

Is this correct ?

[milo]

Could someone that is a little bit more intelligent than help me understand something.

When my city needs to upgrade something..... let's just say its drinking water related. My property taxes goes towards paying for such a project. When a FN reserve needs a drinking water project, it's up to the federal government to pay for ? So, tax paying citizens from cost to coast are on the hook for a water project on a FN reserve in Northern Ontario where they pay no property taxes and barely anyone has a job to help fund a federal system of tax payer dollars. I am supposed to be ok with this because the Catholic Church and the Queen of England killed natives, took their land and caused misery for generations of FN people.

I was unaware that FN reserves fell under federal jurisdiction. Is this true ? I thought they want to be recognized as sepperate nations within a nation with their own laws and so on.

Is this correct ?

Nor sure I qualify as being more intelligent, but you have yourself answered a couple of your own questions. This link takes you to a study module on issues of FN related jurisdiction and governance. Although the focus of the module is on health, this section explains the complicated relationship between FN, federal, and provincial governments in an easy-to-understand format.

https://cichprofile.ca/module/7/section/3/page/indigenous-federalprovincialterritorial-and-self-governance/

Reading it will probably help you to understand the issue of jurisdiction, but it sure won't help save the salmon. For that, we need greed to recede and stop pumping billions of tonnes of our chit into the environment.

FNs are not getting a free ride. They are being compensated for what has been and is being taken from them on an ongoing basis. Sometimes at (for many of us) unimaginable cost.

[Hike_and_fish]

Nor sure I qualify as being more intelligent, but you have yourself answered a couple of your own questions. This link takes you to a study module on issues of FN related jurisdiction and governance. Although the focus of the module is on health, this section explains the complicated relationship between FN, federal, and provincial governments in an easy-to-understand format.

https://cichprofile.ca/module/7/section/3/page/indigenous-federalprovincialterritorial-and-self-governance/

Reading it will probably help you to understand the issue of jurisdiction, but it sure won't help save the salmon. For that, we need greed to recede and stop pumping billions of tonnes of our chit into the environment.

FNs are not getting a free ride. They are being compensated for what has been and is being taken from them on an ongoing basis. Sometimes at (for many of us) unimaginable cost.

Thanks for the link !

I agree about the chite being pumped into our water ways. I've always thought that true environmentalism is becoming a lost mindset. As a society we've become so focused on greenhouse gas emissions and less focused on pollution of other kinds. Why are plastic bags are straws more of a big deal than mines that leak toxic chemicals into rivers.

[DanTfisherman]

Unfortunately Ralph, I am not addressing you so much as others who may be open to listen, read, make decisions for themselves, and thus critically analyze information and decide for themselves.

While not a regular contributer, I have followed various one sided posts and lines of reasoning you have used on the forum to realize there is no real "debate" with you.  For me, a post like this it is about suggesting different lines of thought around the same polarizing issues that seem to divide us, and looking to see if there are grounds for people on this forum to question and re-evaluate their assumptions and believe about such issues.

Unfortunately, I am not able to see or read what you posted before deciding there was a craftier way to say whatever you wished to say, and try to discount what I said as useless and unrelated.  If I thought it was important enough, I could use Wayback Machine to try to see what was originally said, but that would be five minutes of my life I would not get back, so it is not worth my time.

As I remember it, the contention was that the changes Euro-Canadian culture brought to North America are responsible for greed, and thus we are in the current situation, and thus, I hate to place it in words this way, but it is our fault, as non-indigenous peoples.  This is a simplistic take on "us and them" and one I do not agree with.

For example, if I was simplistic, I could make a suggestion that Indigenous peoples of North America introduced Europeans, and thus, future citizens of Canada and the United states to smoking.  To back up my rather interesting assertion, I could then go on to post a link like this:
https://www.lib.umn.edu/bell/tradeproducts/tobacco
I could then go on to contend that First Nations people are responsible for the introduction of tobacco, addicting countless generations to smoking, and are responsible for, I do not know, millions of cancer related deaths?  I could go on to contend maybe they should be held responsible due to the historical context and the damage their introduced product has inflicted.

I used the word patronizing, which it seems you took offense to, and have had a few thoughts and ways to reply, according to editing.  In my understanding of things, Indigenous peoples are complex, educated, citizens, city dwellers, urban dwellers, elders, doctors, lawyers, street people, homeless, have status, have no status, live on reserve, live off reserve, voters, politicians, mayors, chiefs, elders, mothers, fathers, and share many of the qualities as other Canadians.  Can I dare to say they are us and are just as much of the Canadian mosaic as you and I, and therefore, should not be defined or made into a stereotypical definition anymore.  In my eyes, to do so is to patronize who Indigenous people are and how they are a valued component of our multi-cultural society.

For those who may be interested, a good read on such things is Thomas King and his book "The Inconvenient Indian".  I am currently reading it for the second time.  The first time, I read the original edition and it was not illustrated.  I am reading the newest edition with illustrations, and it is much better, for the illustrations add to the level of appreciation and understanding of Mr. King's message.  Mr. King looks at our current situation with regards to, for lack of a better term, "The Indian Question" with both humour, logic, and common sense that I feel the average reader can appreciate.  Here is a link to Thomas King's book as he explains the goal of his book in 2 minutes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R3XfYNvjee4

For a taste on who Thomas King is, and his take on things, which I hope will lead to others questioning their values, understandings, and maybe stereotypes of First Nations peoples, that they may still hold without knowing, I leave you with this video:

https://www.nsi-canada.ca/2012/03/im-not-the-indian-you-had-in-mind/

If you liked Corner Gas, you will appreciate one of the key individuals narrating the video.

Dano